


Happy Birthday, My Kitten

by mage_cat



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra does not appear but is heavily discussed, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-07 16:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mage_cat/pseuds/mage_cat
Summary: Written in honor of Catra's official birthdayCatra does not know when when her birthday is, but elsewhere in Etheria is someone who remembers the date all too well.





	Happy Birthday, My Kitten

A magicat woman stood on a clifftop, looking out in the direction from which Horde transports always came. Her fur was charcoal gray, and her hair a shade darker. “Happy birthday, my kitten,” she said, as though the wind could carry her words to the Fright Zone.

A human man emerged from the trees at her back. There were touches of gray in his dark hair and beard. “It’s autumn, and you staring out over the water and brooding. It must be October twenty-eighth.”

If it had been spring, her behavior would have made him guess the date when the Horde had first come to conquer Beast Island, killing the woman’s husband in battle and setting in motion the events that made this a day for brooding rather than celebration.

“She’s nineteen today, Micah,” she said, not turning around. "I haven’t seen her since she was three.”

“Is this a year you want company or to brood in peace? We both know you’ll be making me the same offer in a little over a month.” The closeness of their daughters’ births was part of why their relationship was so much warmer than would be expected of a warden and the one her masters had declared their most valuable prisoner. Not that any inmate of Beast Island was treated that badly by their conscripted guards. The torture of Beast Island lay mostly in the inability of any of them to leave. For these two, the worst of that torture was the knowledge that their daughters were growing up without them.

“Stay, if you will.” She sighed. “She’s not a cadet anymore. While she was I could pretend that she was still my blameless little kitten instead of whatever that pit of vipers was turning her into.”

Micah stood beside her now as they both looked out over the water. “She sounds terrifying.” Entrapta’s arrival had delivered them more news than they had had in years. “If you want permission to be a little proud, I’ll give it to you. An eighteen-year-old leading an attack on Bright Moon and almost succeeding is impressive from any perspective.” He left unspoken that the harm caused that they knew of was still reversible enough for him to forgive. “We always knew our daughters might meet on opposite sides of a battlefield. Still strange to think that it’s actually happened.”

“I gave her to those people. I gave her to that leech.”

“I’m sure Shadow Weaver deeply regrets strong-arming you into that.” His former teacher had led the conquest of Beast Island and the surrender negotiations afterward, bargaining hard for the immense magical potential she had sensed in the girl. She had not known the fire she would be dealing with. She had not been prepared to get burned. “There’s a fight I wish I could have seen.” Shadow Weaver had, after all, been the one to capture and sentence him to the island in the first place. He had listened to the story of Catra severing her link to the Black Garnet with no small amount of satisfaction.

“I wish I could see her. I wish I could guide her. I wish I could hold her and tell her that there’s a place for her that she doesn’t have to fight to attain and that the world doesn’t need conquering.”

“Too be fair, it’s not like there isn’t one corner of the world you would want her to conquer.”

“But I would love her whether she ever managed it or not. Besides, whatever stories she had been learning are long forgotten. She wouldn’t know Halfmoon or the Spirit Ember if she saw them,” she said, naming a homeland long lost and a runestone that had been corrupted beyond her family’s use since the night the stars had disappeared from Etheria’s skies. “She wouldn’t know me if she saw me.”

“Well, if she saw you, she would at least have strong suspicions. After all, she’s seen your eyes every time she looks in a mirror.”

She traced the line of the headpiece she had worn in the days before the Horde came. She still felt the phantom weight of it all these years later. “Shadow Weaver kept one promise at least. Catra may not know what the Royal Mask means, but she does wear it.” For the first time that day, a smile, if a sad one, crossed her face. “My daughter is a young woman who can walk into the deadliest corner of Etheria, sent to die, and walk out scarce days later with a prize in her hand and new followers trailing behind her. There is a little pride in that. In a better world, she would have been a fantastic queen.”

“Your Majesty!” They turned towards the new voice, a magicat man with brown tabby coloring. “There is a new communication from the Fright Zone that you will want to see.” He handed her the data pad.

She read it, blinked, then read it again. “Catra has been declared the co-leader of the Horde, equal to Hordak himself.”

Micah studied the pad. “Perhaps the Warden of Beast Island could find an excuse to send a communication to her new Lord. Maybe a request to renegotiate the no-communication clause of the surrender treaty?”

For the first time in years, she felt a small, timid flame of hope in her chest. “Perhaps I could.”


End file.
